This walk tells you everything you want to know about the Spanish Flu, how it was dealt with, and arguably how it changed the course and result of the Great War. We start with Armistice Day crowds in Trafalgar Square. Great joy but the virus spreads. Then its keeping up morale through theatres and cinemas, until they have to be closed down. There are all sorts of hospitals, some converted mansions run by their aristocratic owners. Ballrooms become wards. There’s rationing, queues, drug taking, sex, masks, tax, propaganda, Home Front cannon fodder. But also the first women police officers, the first women house surgeons, the rise of women’s football. And great coordination and organisation. It ends with Children in Need – in Germany. Did the Spanish flu end the Great War?

Start Trafalgar Square
Finish Green Park tube station (or a café or pub in Piccadilly)